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Shopify Goes Digital by Default

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Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#231

Post by wtetzner »

ponker wrote: post #209
dan_quixote wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| I've found that advocates of WFH are mostly motivated by that's what they want to do more than anything else. I've heard endless people state that WFH productivity is through the roof with absolutely no evidence. And lets not pretend that we can accurately measure productivity of software devs - we've all been down this road with agile.

Here are some numbers... I work at a FAANG and 28-day commits in my division (~5K engineers) are down ~3% from February. Not an exact science but some real data I just pulled for you.

What are "28-day commits"? Are you talking about commits to source control?

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#232

Post by whateveracct »

skwb wrote: post #180
cletus wrote: post #141

So I've now been WFH for 2 months and honestly I hate it. Work was already flexible enough such that if you wanted to WFH you could. By convention, people would most often WFH on Wednesdays. I liked this timing of people doing it at the same time. But communication and collaboration is just much harder work remote and you can't change my mind. I'm sure you can work hard to make it almost as good but it's never going…

I think the optimum is 3 days of WFH, with the remainder being spent in person. For most people, you're going to have work you can do on your own. You probably only need a little bit of help here and there. The office specific days, you spend on meetings, working more directly with people. I think this would also significantly reduce stress on employees. You could live in more affordable areas, and take commuter tran…

That defeats a lot of the benefit of remote work though. My output in 3 days of work is gonna be a week's worth in my experience. Padding it with face time is mostly me eating a loss.

2 days/week working synchronously with people? Of meetings? I can't remember a time when a project I've worked on needed that to succeed.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#233

Post by carierx1 »

jjice wrote: post #200

I know a lot of people like working from home, and I like the option, but I'm personally more of a fan of being in the office. I feel more productive and I like having the ability to talk to my coworkers. I've seen a lot of people saying that working from home is objectively better, and I think that that is a bit of a radical claim. I rent a room in a beaten up house, so I have about 130ft2 of personal space, a share…

The amount of "I"s in the above message is staggering.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#234

Post by MattGaiser »

alexbanks wrote: post #214
MattGaiser wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't impossible, just more difficult, mostly based on human factors. Say you have developers who don't like confrontation. During an in-person requirement analysis, you might see their irritation in the in-person meeting and extract their opinion. Hidden behind screens, anything no matter how absurd, might get approved. They might also clarify requirements less. This is happening on my team, as we developers chal…

I think that blaming remote work to mask people/team problems that existed in person is unwise. If your team isn't comfortable being legitimate and honest during requirement analysis, is it worth having? If, in person, the process breaks down into "What the team lead can notice about the team's body language/behavior during requirement analysis", I would probably suggest that there needs to be a fundamental rethinkin…

I don't see it as a fundamental problem with remote work, but remote work requires that many things work a lot better than they on average do. You can try and fix everything from team dynamics and documentation or drag everyone into the office and have the problems kind of be fixed by default.

You run into this issue with documentation too. A lot of the "go chat with X" really should be "go read Y on the wiki." But fixing that, especially after long periods of neglect, is a project likely to fail.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#235

Post by chrisandchips »

kjakm wrote: post #173
cletus wrote: post #141

So I've now been WFH for 2 months and honestly I hate it. Work was already flexible enough such that if you wanted to WFH you could. By convention, people would most often WFH on Wednesdays. I liked this timing of people doing it at the same time. But communication and collaboration is just much harder work remote and you can't change my mind. I'm sure you can work hard to make it almost as good but it's never going…

>> I of course miss the meals and snacks. I'm not trying to be facetious - you seriously can't provide your own meals and snacks working from home? >> Many people who work at these companies live in big cities where they don't have huge amounts of space and it's not conducive to being productivity, particularly if you live with other people, if you can't get some form of separation. Do you live in that space because…

you’re assuming that people can work in libraries, cafes and other places. these places are barely ever conducive to jobs that might require you to hop on a call at a moments notice (which is far more common when in remote) or handle sensitive data.

moving to a cheaper location also usually means giving up a lot of things that urban life comes with as well. you cant expect that everyone is going to be happy with that decision

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#236

Post by whateveracct »

baron816 wrote: post #194
newfeatureok wrote: post #90

Remote-first is the future. I'm not sure why anyone would be against it. No one is forcing you to work from home. From a compliance and operations perspective a remote-first company is effectively forced to do a lot of things many companies do not or will not undertake: - Make meetings accessible to everyone - Communicate more effectively and transparently internal to the organization (and even externally, for the ad…

Imagine being the only employee on the team who wants to work in the office. That could be a problem. You’re young, maybe just out of college, and moving to a city hoping to form new connections with people. Yet, everyone’s now working from home. You don’t have any real opportunity to build relationships with your coworkers. Work becomes a much more dreary experience at that point. No one to each lunch with. No inter…

We don't need a rise in social clubs there are already plenty. Find a hobby to share with people works fine.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#237

Post by andreilys »

furyofantares wrote: post #189
dominotw wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> leads to thinly-veiled, self-serving, biased arguments and proclamations of the benefits to everyone. > So I've now been WFH for 2 months and honestly I hate it. > I just don't think a company with 50,000+ employees can operate this way indefinitely. ok. Why do you consider your arguments against WFH not biased and useful. "other side is biased" ...quite funny :D

> Why do you consider your arguments against WFH not biased and useful. The software industry is doing quite well for itself, busily collecting all the world’s money. It doesn’t mean it’s doing everything right but it does put a larger burden of proof on advocates for change.

Wordpress/Automatic is a fully remote company.

Considering that the number of total active websites is estimated at over 1.3 billion according to a survey published by Netcraft, that means that around 455,000,000 websites are using WordPress right now, which means that around 20% of all self-hosted websites use WordPress.

So I’d say they’re doing pretty well for themselves.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#239

Post by trianglem »

cletus wrote: post #141

So I've now been WFH for 2 months and honestly I hate it. Work was already flexible enough such that if you wanted to WFH you could. By convention, people would most often WFH on Wednesdays. I liked this timing of people doing it at the same time. But communication and collaboration is just much harder work remote and you can't change my mind. I'm sure you can work hard to make it almost as good but it's never going…

It’s different strokes. I have never been as productive ever in 5 years of in office work. I find picking up a phone and calling people is just so much quicker than walking over to someone’s desk. Couple that with the fact that I don’t enjoy the office environment means that I hate you cletus for typing out this drivel I clearly don’t agree with and care about.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#240

Post by landryraccoon »

cletus wrote: post #222
kjakm wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I of course miss the meals and snacks. I'm not trying to be facetious - you seriously can't provide your own meals and snacks working from home? >> Many people who work at these companies live in big cities where they don't have huge amounts of space and it's not conducive to being productivity, particularly if you live with other people, if you can't get some form of separation. Do you live in that space because…

> I'm not trying to be facetious - you seriously can't provide your own meals and snacks working from home? Of course I can but I just don't want to. This isn't about being cheap or lazy (although I'm guilty of both to varying degrees). The biggest benefit of having a catered office is the lack of having to make a decision about what to eat. I'll just eat what they're serving that day. I'm a big believer in decision…

> I live in NYC because I want to live in NYC.

It doesn't make NYC sound very appealing if working from your home in NYC is hellish.

Working from my home in the Bay is actually quite nice. The best part is getting an hour of my day back because I don't have to commute to work. That 1 hour commute probably added more stress to my day than any other hour.

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